During this Student Government Association election process, you have heard a lot about each of the candidates and their parties, but on this year’s ballot, there is an additional referendum question that you should also hear about. MaryPIRG — Maryland student Public Interest Research Group — is a statewide advocacy organization that has been at the university since 1973. As an organization, our mission is to encourage students to get involved and provide them with the resources they need to better affect change on the local, state and even national levels.

We work to find solutions on issues in the public interest and especially those that we feel are most important to students. Some of the most recent issues students in MaryPIRG have worked on include global warming solutions, hunger and homelessness relief efforts, voter registration, higher education and affordable textbooks, health care reform and a sweatshop-product-free university.

We have been really effective on these issues and others for 36 years. For example, in 2009, we worked with student groups at the university, our citizen organization Maryland PIRG and its coalition partners across the state to pass the Greenhouse Gas Emissions Reduction Act, making Maryland one of the leading states in global warming policies. We have raised thousands of dollars for hunger and homelessness, including hundreds for Haiti relief efforts this year. Additionally, this year, with the help of the professional organizers and lobbyists who work on students’ behalf, we helped pass student loan reform that increases the federal Pell Grants by at least $40 billion.

In order to continue getting results like these, we need your help. Our referendum question will ask students if they want to keep funding MaryPIRG through student activities fees, which we use to fund full-time positions such as a campus organizer and a state director.

Because we as an organization understand the importance of the student voice, we know it can be hard to affect change without some sort of guidance or help from people who are willing to provide resources.

That is why these positions are very important to us and the work that we do. Not only do they help us work toward finding the solutions we believe are necessary for some of these issues, but they also help keep us involved and connected with students across the country. There are nearly 100 student PIRGs in the United States, all of which are doing their part to keep students actively engaged in their communities. This is something we hope to continue to do in the same capacity after this referendum. On almost all of our flyers you will read, “Together we can make change happen,” because we need your vote to help us continue this mission and continue to make changes for the betterment of our society.

So don’t forget to vote at www.testudo.umd.edu. And feel free to stop by and see us at anytime in our office in South Campus Dining Hall. We would love for you to help us make change happen.

Krystala Skordalos is a member of MaryPIRG. She can be reached at kskordal at umd dot edu.